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In Data and Goliath, Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and fellow at Harvard Law School, explores what it means to have entered the age of mass surveillance. Our data are collected in the first instance by private corporations, but are increasingly exploited, as Edward Snowden has shown, by government intelligence agencies. The NSA didn't have to build from scratch a vast database on billions of innocent citizens the world over, Schneier explains, because private corporations had already done so. All the NSA needed was access.

The American security guru fears that the diffusion of the software could be used by criminal groups

You wrote in your blog: "I don't think the company is going to survive". However, at least in Italy and in the US Hacking Team has powerful sponsors...Will they survive? «It remains to be seen. We know from the leaked documents that they have sold their products to the most repressive governments in the world...and overcharged them whenever possible.

Cyberattacks are getting more frequent, sophisticated and successful. Can organizations adapt security choices to cope better?

At minimum, it's needed to satisfy relevant government and industry compliance regulations, along with your insurance company, investors, suppliers, customers and other business partners. At most, it also protects your data and systems from much-dreaded cyberattacks.

Bruce Schneier has been writing about security issues on his blog, his blog, Schneier on Security, since 2004, and in a monthly newsletter since 1998. He writes books, articles, and academic papers. Currently, he is the Chief Technology Officer of Resilient Systems, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center, and a board member of Electronic Frontier Foundation.

What do you see as the greatest cyber risks today?

I don't like ranking risks, and I worry that concentrating on the 'greatest' risk obscures all of the other risks. Basically, the big cyber risks are what everyone is talking about.

iPhone and mobile banking can feel like setting foot in the jungle: You don't know what's in there, but you suspect a lot of it's not good. We hear a lot of terms thrown around when it comes to iPhone banking security: 128 bit encryption, two factor authentication, security dongles—and a lot of scary anecdotes about millions of credit card account numbers being stolen from this or that company. Getting to the bottom of whether iPhone banking is safe can be confusing at best. So is iPhone banking safe?

Corporate and government IT teams have been rushing to prevent the kind of large-scale cyberattack experienced recently by Sony Pictures, Blue Cross, Anthem, Target, Home Depot and the U.S. Department of the Interior, among others. In each of these cases, hackers from locations around the globe were able to gain access to computer networks housing sensitive information, accounts, and personal data, such as the social security and credit card numbers of consumers and employees. The consequences of such security breaches can be devastating.

Strong encryption refers to the act of scrambling data in such a way that it cannot be understood by anyone without the correct key or password — even law enforcement with a warrant, or the software manufacturer itself. It's used in some of the most popular tech products in the world, including the iPhone, WhatsApp messenger, and Facebook.

But amid heightened terror fears, Cameron says "we must look at all the new media being produced and ensure that, in every case, we are able, in extremis and on the signature of a warrant, to get to the bottom of what is going on."